All Lives Matter

December 15 2014

Dear Reader,

Black lives matter. These three little words, which are so obviously true, echo the great pain of too many. Parents that lost their beautiful children, brothers and sisters that never get too play together, loved ones brutally ripped apart, little children that will grow up without one of their parents, and so many more. I can imagine the pain. And I hand my head in shame. Because justice is denied to too many families. The least we could do is stop those responsible and hold them accountable. Yet even this seems to be too much. With the great majority of cases ignored and the whispers for justice unheard. What do we tell the family of Tamir Rice, Eric Garner and Mike Brown ?

The callous disrespect for human life does not end there. Blackwater's Youngest Victim is one of the most heartbreaking documentaries that I ever saw. It tells the story of Ali Kinani's death. Ali was a nine-year old boy. He was killed by Blackwater forces in the infamous Nisour Square massacre. They were in no danger and opened fire on innocent by-standers for no apparent reason. Sadly very few people know about this and many other tragedies in the Iraq war. Cheerleading a war is never hard if you do not face the high price paid.

An other great documentary Dirty Wars starts with the story of The Khataba raid an incident in the War in Afghanistan in which five civilians, including two pregnant women and a teenage girl, were killed by U.S. forces on February 12, 2010. Initially, it was implied that the three women were killed prior to the raid by family members in an honor killing. As part of the cover-up US Special Forces removed bullets from the victims bodies.

In relation to War on Terror, I would like to thank Craig Murray Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan. He exposed the complicity of the UK-government in torture programs. Which in Uzbekistan includes boiling people alive. No Western leader seem to have a particular problem with this as long as Uzbekistan remains an ally. "The British government does not care how many people they kill abroad as long as it advances them one bit " -Craig Murray

Now thanks to a Listserve member's excellent advice to "Do something new! Do not just tell me to love everybody", I will not tell you what to do. But I will ask you all, to please remember all the innocent victims. Sadly I have no solutions or answers, only the believe that if we come together. Say enough is enough. Say Every live matters. Something will change. Ultimately it is in your hands, do you quietly accept the injustice ?

"I have seen that it is not man who is impotent in the struggle against evil, but the power of evil that is impotent in the struggle against man. The powerlessness of kindness, of senseless kindness, is the secret of its immortality. It can never by conquered. The more stupid, the more senseless, the more helpless it may seem, the vaster it is. Evil is impotent before it. The prophets, religious teachers, reformers, social and political leaders are impotent before it. This dumb, blind love is man's meaning. Human history is not the battle of good struggling to overcome evil. It is a battle fought by a great evil, struggling to crush a small kernel of human kindness. But if what is human in human beings has not been destroyed even now, then evil will never conquer."― Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate